What great advice! Only if we would always follow it … right?
Worry, however, is sadly an inevitability of life. We worry about our relationships, health, job security and employment, finances, and even appearances. For instance, you lose your job. You as a result worry about finding another job. You worry whether or not you will be able to make ends meet and pay your mortgage and taxes. Or, lets say, you run into some health issues and your doctor recommends certain tests to rule out cancer; you worry if your test results will come back positive.
And so, where there is uncertainty, the natural human response is to think negative. Some of us even play over and over again worst-case-scenarios in our heads like watching a bad movie over and over again.
Yet I am reminded that God can do anything. I am reminded over and over again that God has in the past always supplied my needs when I am faithful to Him. So why do we still worry? It is the human side of us. Trust is not a natural response. We need to exert our will to trust God in all circumstances. Instead of being distracted from God, we need to exert ourselves and equip ourselves everyday with God’s Word to combat our human nature to want control. We need to wholly trust in Him. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34).
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on Matthew 6:34 says “The conclusion of the whole matter is, that it is the will and command of the Lord Jesus, that by daily prayers we may get strength to bear us up under our daily troubles, and to arm us against the temptations that attend them, and then let none of these things move us.”
Copyright 2015 Bill Hutzel
Bill,
It sounds as if you have trusted God in specific situations and release that God has provided in the past and will continue to do so. Right now I have a job as a caregiver but need to trust God to provide a better job. He always has done so in the past, and in some miraculous ways. In the natural, as being over 60 years of age, I would see many “red flags”, but I have skill sets and experience that would minister to people and provide income as well. God is able. I have been thanking God for all of the blessings and starting with worship which places me in the atmosphere of heaven.
Thanks for your timely message!
Cate
I pray each day for God to supply my financial needs. After I lost my job in the corporate world in 2008 during the Great Recession, my age made if difficult for me to re-enter the workforce with so many people unemployed. God, however, unbeknownst to me, dropped in my lap a job that is my business today. I wasn’t even looking for work in this profession; I was looking for another IT job. But God had other plans. I will share this story as a post that I have written already, but have not published yet for some reason. It’s a good story of God’s grace and how He always comes to our rescue and supplies our needs.
A friend from church recently shared with me a saying that is I think a paraphrase of John 16:13. It said “I am filled with the wisdom of God, and I am led to make wise and prosperous financial decisions. The Spirit of God guides me into all truth regarding my financial affairs.” We need to claim God’s promises daily and thank Him for all He has provided already.
Prayers are going out to you this minute, Cate.
God bless.
Bill
Bill,
Brother Bill,
I appreciate your reply. God has also dropped jobs in my lap. I am praying for the energy and motivation to “reinvent myself”.
During Lent I saw a message from Steve Backlund from the website “Ignitiing Hope”.
It trains us to have a Negativity Fast/Positivity Feast. The lies and accusations that play over and over in our mind can be countered with speaking the promises of God and focusing on Jesus and living above our circumstances. I love what I do in caregiving and have brought 3 elderly ladies to the Lord. There is value in that I tell the Lord and at least for now and a few years in the past I loved working and ministering as well. It should be exciting to see what God has for me next and it sounds as I read more of your blogs that you are multifaceted and talented and probably right and left brained, both creative musically, writing, and communicating as well as analytical and techy.
Wow–Jesus was choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholy. He embodied all of the personality traits. You are using every gift for the kingdom. You go, brother!
In His grip,
Cate B.